The Karate Kid

The best films are the ones that continue to entertain you and make you feel over multiple years. All the while adding more layers of depth and meaning to when you originally saw it. The Karate Kid is one of those films for me. There are so many good things about this film itself that I could go on for quite awhile. I'll try to be succinct though.

My brother, Lance, and I grew up watching this film. In fact, it probably defined our childhood in terms of films. Sure, we watched the Star Wars movies and The Princess Bride a lot, too, but The Karate Kid topped them all. We would act out a few scenes from the movie, especially the one where Mr. Miyagi shows Daniel that he is actually learning karate from all the work he is making him do. Each of us always wanted to be Mr. Miyagi so we could slap the other guy for lowering his eyes when he bowed.

There are so many factors in this movie. It's a coming of age/unlikely friendship/martial arts film. There are issues regarding moving and starting in a new school, dating across social classes, the right and wrong way of teaching martial arts, being a single parent with a teenager, and overcoming odds to earn respect and find balance (in multiple areas of life).

The acting and filmmaking is also quality. Not that I know everything now, but there are a few things I've noticed since I first saw the film. There is one scene they did in one shot! No cuts at all. This is when Daniel wakes up under the care of Mr. Miyagi after the Cobra Kais give him quite a beating. The dialogue is quite lengthy yet still, there are no cuts or other angles. Also, the shot when Daniel first enters the tournament floor with Mr. Miyagi and Ali is quite remarkable. It starts with them entering, follows them as the Cobra Kai pass them, and then sweeps up along the bleachers to give you a panoramic view of the tournament. Quite a shot since it follows the leads, shows you a few karate matches, and has hundreds of extras either as audience members or tournament workers in the shot.

That first scene I mentioned with the dialogue was successful only because of the chemistry onscreen with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. Pat Morita was a stand-up comic. His voice is not really like that. He completely created that persona with the voice. Ralph Macchio related to his Daniel character, not being very muscular. Although in his words, he "wasn't as defiant" and his onscreen character. Martin Kove, who plays Kreese, also did a great job of being the menacing teacher who instilled the wrong values of martial arts into his students.

Which brings us into that dichotomy of teaching martial arts. The philosophy of martial arts in the film is authentic. The writer, Robert Mark Kamen, studied and practiced the martial arts for a long time. Kreese and Mr. Miyagi were the exact opposites. Kreese was all about the physical sport. You know- "strike first! strike hard! no mercy sir!" Mr. Miyagi was all about the mental toughness. Karate was used only to defend yourself as a last resort. Because the best martial artist is actually the best peacemaker. Even if someone is looking to start a fight with you, the better martial artist will resolve the encounter peacefully without throwing his/her fists.

Well, so much for being succinct! There's even more I could write about but I will stop here. Perhaps I will expand on some issues and add more another time.

blessings

before "How a Month..."

So the process that my friend, Kelsey, took with the high school kids is what interested me even more than the play. In fact, that was what the point of even writing the play was for Kelsey. Her mom and I were joking about getting Kelsey to write sequels and what not, but it wouldn't matter to Kelsey right now because the process would not be there.

The four lead girls in the play had to follow a lot of rules to survive with limited options in order for their parents to pay for their trip. Kelsey challenged the cast and crew with some of those same rules. Three outfits to wear at school for the entire month. No makeup or shaving. No facebook. The point wasn't to follow every rule, but to consider why we do some of the things we do. Some guys didn't even notice that the girls were not wearing makeup and thought they looked just as beautiful. "You mean we are just putting on makeup for ourselves?" Exactly (maybe not all the time, but you get the idea).

Kelsey also did activities related to community. One particularly interesting activity was dividing up everyone into certain groups, each being a neighborhood of a particular social class. They each had to make their communities work no matter how much money they had. The upper class groups didn't end up helping the lower class groups. Why? Was it in the rules? No. That's just what society tells you as its unwritten rule. Kelsey never made that rule in the activity.

She also challenged their comfort zones. Each person had to meet someone new and find out more about them. In fact, the cast and crew bios were not about themselves, but some of the people they met during the month. They also volunteered at various places. Some worked on a farm, some at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen-type place.

Strangely enough, even more experiences of the cast and crew in real life mirrored the play. One girl broke up with her boyfriend because he didn't like how she had changed. But as humans, we should all strive to get out of our comfort zones and become better. That's why I applaud Kelsey and that's why the process interested me so much.

Also, take a look at the article written by the Grand Rapids Press for this play.

How A Month Changes Everything

So as I said, I saw a play in Grand Rapids last week written and co-directed by my friend, Kelsey. It is about 4 high school girls, Ellie, Stacy, Leah, and Beth, who want to take a trip to another country during their summer after graduation. Of course, being high school students, they can't foot the bill for something like that. They make a deal with their parents that if they follow certain conditions that show they can take care of themselves in a foreign place (i.e. no cell phone, carry everything they will use for the month in a backpack), then their parents will pay for this trip. They soon discover that their last month of high school will change in more dramatic ways than they could possibly imagine.

Carrying everything they will use that month in a bag means 3 outfits for the whole month, just soap to bathe and clean those 3 outfits, and no makeup. Cars are a convenience, too, so they must ride bikes. They can only eat meals at home with their families, so they have to figure out lunch each day, too. Throughout the process, they learn a lot about themselves, community in general, and the people around them whom they would never pay attention to previously.

For example, Leah talks to her Ellie's next-door neighbor. The two girls find out the neighbor is a writer. In exchange for writing journals about their experiences that month, the neighbor will pay for materials to make prom dresses. Would Ellie have ever spoken to her neighbor if she didn't use a bike for that month and came in her front door? The four girls also end up meeting everyday in the park where they meet and befriend a few interesting characters.

The month certainly brings more challenges. They start getting unwanted attention for being different. Usually negative attention. Stacy's boyfriend doesn't want to take part in this new lifestyle and meet the new friends she is making. They find it harder and harder to stick together and complete this month, but eventually end up following through the whole time.

One of the best scenes is towards the end when they juxtapose (not sure if I'm using the right word) the finale dinner with the four girls, their parents, and all the friends they have met to the pre-prom dinner their friends go on. On one side is a beautiful, vibrant, new community of people enjoying themselves. On the other side- a proper, elegant meal but shallow, unexciting conversation.

The end of the play sums up the life lessons what the girls learned during the month, but ends in classic Kelsey fashion. Kind of a "this play could keep going on and on but we'll end it right...here!" I'm very proud of Kelsey. She wrote and co-directed a wonderful play with great words, moments, and character development. It's a play based on many of her life experiences throughout the years. What's more impressive though is the journey leading up to "How a Month..."

day in Grand Rapids

I just saw the WORLD DEBUT of How a Month Changes Everything, a play written by my friend, Kelsey. It was a great play, but even more incredible was the process leading up to it. Can't wait to blog more about it but must prepare stuff for youth group this weekend right now.

what's your mission statement?

As some of you know, I was at a leadership conference recently in KY. So much speaking- but really good. One of the speakers, Chuck Goetschel, who I admire a lot, gave one of the most meaningful talks that weekend. He first listed a bunch of words and told us to circle the six that meant the most to us:

integrity
influence
love
justice
success
spirituality
friendship
truth
authenticity
wisdom
legacy
peace
power
wealth
joy
happiness
recognition
family
career
fame
status
(there may have been a couple more words but I missed them)

Next, he told us to cross out three of the six we circled that don't mean as much. Ones that we could do without more than the other three. Then we ordered the three that were left- 1 being the most important one to us. We then set goals by defining what each of those three remaining words meant to us personally.

This is one way of writing down your life's mission statement. What is most important to you? Most people won't write this down, which is why most people don't fulfill their life's purpose. I hope all of you do this at some point.

It doesn't stop there. We then have to set priorities on the things we do and choices we make daily. Every choice should be bridging the gap from the present to our future destination determined by the goals we wrote down. The way Chuck set priorities was with ABCs. A's are things we absolutely have to do today because it is in line with my mission. B's are things that are somewhat important. There are some consequences if I do not accomplish them today. And C's have no consequences if not accomplished today.

Finally, we have to stay the course. Don't stick with doing the things not in line with your mission. Stephen Covey compares the combination of things that are/are not important and urgent:


1) important/not urgent
2) important/urgent
3) not important/not urgent
4) not important/urgent


Most people stay focused on #4, doing not important, urgent things. We should really should be spending more time focused on #1, doing important, non-urgent things. Of course there will be times when urgent things come up, whether they are important or not, and we can do those. But our main focus should be on what's important.

I encourage you to at least start off and find the words that mean the most to you and define what they personally mean to you. Mine were love, justice, and integrity. If any of you do write those down, please let me know. I'd love to have a conversation with you.

post- Rob Bell

You want to know something funny? My friend, Erin, is going to see Rob Bell tonight in Colorado. She got tickets awhile ago from a friend. The funny thing is that she thought that she was going to see Don Miller the whole time. She was excited about going this whole time and raving about it to her roommate, who's going to see Rob Bell with her. Turns out she doesn't know too much about Rob Bell. Oh well. She will after tonight and I'm sure she'll check out his books and what not, too. I wondered what would have happened if I didn't talk to her before she went. Probably some confusion...

The Gods Aren't Angry Tour

Last night I saw Rob Bell on the opening night of his new tour, The Gods Aren't Angry. It was a sold-out crowd at the Vic. Lots of young adults, but others as well. I met my friend, Jill (who came into town), Kim, and her roommate (also named Kim) before the show. There were a few others who I knew were going that I didn't get to see there at all.

Those of you who have read Rob Bell's books and/or seen him speak know that he does both in a similar fashion. He has a way of putting things into context that you don't hear too often, which is why I've read his books and heard him speak. He mixes a good bunch of history from other religions, personal stories, and Christian faith into great messages.

This tour was like that, first introducing us to numerous gods from other cultures. Wherever you go, you end up sacrificing more for them. Here's why. You are dependent on these outside forces or gods to provide the right amount of sunlight and rain to grow crops that you eat. If conditions didn't provide enough crops, you felt that you had not pleased these gods enough, so you sacrifice more. If the conditions provided an abundance of crops, you gave more to show your appreciation to the gods. And there were plenty more gods you would depend on for other needs and wants. But they were up there doing their own thing.

Along comes Abraham. He is in this system of sacrificing gods and depends on them. He relied on his father to know this system in the region he lived in. Then all of a sudden, God speaks to him and tells him to leave his family. What? God is someone who is not only in touch with what is happening on the earth but actually speaks to a human? And leave the system of gods Abraham is familiar with to an unknown place? The idea seemed crazy.

Travel ahead several years when God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, up in the mountains. At first glance, this is a story of God testing Abraham's faith. Why was their no resentment or questioning on how to do it? Maybe because it was a common practice. But who in their right mind would sacrifice their firstborn? I've heard it said multiple times that this story is not necessarily about Abraham's faith. One pastor said it was about showing faith to his doubting family that thought he was crazy. Rob Bell suggested it was to show a glimpse of who this God is, since he stops Abraham from killing Isaac. Why is this significant? In a history of gods that demand (or atleast seem to demand) sacrifices, this God stops this sacrifice and provided a way out.

Bell went on to around the year 30 A.D. The main temple (in Jerusalem?) had a huge altar. During Passover, there would be thousands of animals slaughtered for sacrifice on this altar. In entered Jesus, and he claimed that if you tear "this temple" down, He would rebuild it in 3 days. Sure...it took us some 46 odd years to build this temple (and still not finished yet) but you will rebuild it in 3 days?

But the main idea here, just as with the story of Abraham and Isaac, is that we are following a God who provides. A God who has ideas of being close to His people that are way ahead of its time. A God who does not follow the ways of lower case gods.

In Hebrews, the writer calls every sacrifice before that of Christ was not desired by God, nor was He pleased with them. But it was required by the law. A few verses later, that Christ's sacrifice made us holy once and for all (Heb 10:5-10).

Are these gods gone today, or do we merely call them different things? As usual, Bell had plenty of personal stories to share about those with depression, attempted suicide, went through face surgery, faced burn out, felt shame, guilt, and so on. These gods aren't gone. They can control our lives, if we let them, or seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.


That's basically what I remember about what he said, with a couple of other thoughts in there. If he is coming to a town near you, go see him! If not, pick up one of his books, Velvet Elvis or Sex.God., or one of his Nooma DVDs.